I used QB for many years and had a few complaints, mainly about having to re buy the software every few years (upgrade), poor support team knowledge and poor ability to integrate easily with other software. Through weight of publicity I decided to go with sage accounts 50 2010 because it appeared to integrate well with other software. It does integrate well but everything else is a nightmare. It really is surprisingly bad for such a well established software. QB came fully loaded with loads of functionality ready to go,with SAGE I have to buy an extra license for more companies and other facilities I thought were standard, very poor drill down, making amendments is cumbersome, it keeps hanging and you have to have support because the software keeps falling over. I am staggered by how ungainly the product is. If QB ever got their integration sorted with a flexible CSV tool, I would move back immediately. For many years I didn’t even have QB support, it was so simple and reliable. On reflection, QB constant chargeable upgrades are still actually quite good value (if they work)compared with Sage, support is still poor, but you don’t really need it that often, but integration even with the addons is still cumbersome and risky. QB Payroll was fault free, seemlesly integrated and produced good monthly & year end reports. I so miss this product!

I have used quick books and find the older version much better than the new versions, as mentioned before the VAT caluations are a mess, the only way to do it accurately is to put the nominals into excel and work it out yourself.Everything else is fine a few complaints here and there. Really excellent for someone correcting other peoples work as it is really easy to edit transactions of all type.

Tas- Alot of it is good but it is let down with the end of year messing about and having to transfer balances etc. The inability to edit some transactions but you can edit others is a bit annoying and alot of time can be wasted messing about.

Sage- I cannot believe that people still use this, its a mess. About half your time is spent trying to get around its quirks and trying to figure out everything.

Microsoft- I have only used this once or twice and it looks ok but i cannot really comment.

Others-

MYOB- A bit like sage but not nearly as infuriating. V difficult to run accounts and/edit reports etc. Some nice features though.

INRAX- An excellent online option. Software is delivered through Java is available online. No need for licences, one fee will do for all computers. Info is stored on there server in the UK and can be accessed from anywhere.

The program itself is visually v dull, but will surprise you postively. You can only edit dates and text which can be a bit annoying, but unlike, sage, tas or MYOb it won’t take you all day to find the transaction you want to delete. Very good stock sysytem when up and running. The whole software can be fully integrated with a website, so would be an excellent option for online selling.

http://myabacus.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/quickbooks-vs-peachtree/

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/263395/microsoft-office-accounting-professional-2009#lastComment

Look elsewhere

you are right, the new version of Quickbooks 2008 and 2009 sucks really bad. you have to recreate all you templates because the new versions does not incorporate this and to make matters worse the taxs does not seperate like before,
1 row for GST and 1 row for PST. they remove this from the new version. now i’m looking for a new solution after wasting almost 4 days back and fort with QUICKBOOKS.

DO NOT BUY QUICKBOOKS.